BILL NUMBER: AJR 38	CHAPTERED  01/25/00

	RESOLUTION CHAPTER   10
	FILED WITH SECRETARY OF STATE   JANUARY 25, 2000
	ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY   JANUARY 24, 2000
	ADOPTED IN SENATE   JANUARY 20, 2000
	AMENDED IN SENATE   JANUARY 20, 2000
	AMENDED IN SENATE   JANUARY 18, 2000
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY   JANUARY 14, 2000
	AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY   JANUARY 11, 2000

INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Kaloogian
   (Coauthors:  Assembly Members Aanestad, Ackerman, Alquist, Aroner,
Bock, Briggs, Cardenas, Cardoza, Cedillo, Corbett, Correa, Cox,
Davis, Dickerson, Ducheny, Dutra, Florez, Frusetta, Gallegos,
Granlund, Havice, Honda, Jackson, Keeley, Knox, Kuehl, Leach,
Longville, Machado, Maddox, Mazzoni, McClintock, Migden, Nakano,
Olberg, Oller, Robert Pacheco, Papan, Pescetti, Reyes, Scott,
Shelley, Soto, Steinberg, Strickland, Strom-Martin, Thomson,
Torlakson, Washington, Wayne, Wiggins, Wildman, Wright, and Zettel)

                        JANUARY 3, 2000

   Assembly Joint Resolution No. 38--Relative to Sudan.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AJR 38, Kaloogian.  Human rights:  Sudan.
   This measure would condemn the National Islamic Front government
for its genocidal war in southern Sudan, call for the end of the
practice of slavery, urge Congress to adopt the Sudan Peace Act, and
commend the Sudanese people who continue to resist that persecution.




   WHEREAS, According to the United States Committee for Refugees an
estimated 2,000,000 people have died over the past decade due to war
and war-related causes and famine, while millions have been displaced
from their homes and separated from their families; and
   WHEREAS, The National Islamic Front government's war policy in
southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and the Ingessena Hills has
brought untold suffering to innocent civilians and is threatening the
very survival of a whole generation of southern Sudanese; and
   WHEREAS, The people of the Nuba Mountains and the Ingessena Hills
are at particular risk, because they have been specifically targeted
and, as a consequence, they are deliberately prevented from receiving
international food aid, resulting in manmade famine, and are the
targets of routine bombing of their civilian centers, including
schools, hospitals, and areas where religious services are being
held; and
   WHEREAS, The Convention for the Prevention and the Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly
in 1948, defines "genocide" as official acts committed by a
government with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, or
religious group, and this definition also includes "deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction, in whole or in part"; and
   WHEREAS, By that definition, the National Islamic Front government
is deliberately and systematically committing genocide in southern
Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and the Ingessena Hills; and
   WHEREAS, The National Islamic Front government has systematically
and repeatedly obstructed peace efforts of the Intergovernmental
Authority for Development over the past several years; and
   WHEREAS, The Declaration of Principles put forth by the
Intergovernmental Authority for Development mediators is the most
viable negotiating framework to resolve the problems in Sudan and to
bring lasting peace; and
   WHEREAS, Humanitarian conditions in southern Sudan, especially in
Bahr al-Ghazal and the Nuba Mountains, deteriorated in 1998, largely
due to the National Islamic Front government's decision to ban United
Nations' relief flights from February through the end of April in
that year and the government continues to deny access to certain
locations; and
   WHEREAS, An estimated 2,600,000 southern Sudanese have been at
risk of starvation in southern Sudan and the World Food Program
currently estimates that 4,000,000 people are in need of emergency
assistance; and
   WHEREAS, The United Nations-coordinated relief effort, Operation
Lifeline Sudan, failed to respond in a timely manner at the height of
the humanitarian crisis and has allowed the National Islamic Front
government to manipulate and obstruct the relief efforts; and
   WHEREAS, The relief work in the affected areas is further
complicated by the National Islamic Front's repeated aerial attacks
on feeding centers, clinics, and other civilian targets; and
   WHEREAS, Relief efforts are further exacerbated by looting,
bombing, and killing of innocent civilians and relief workers by
government-sponsored militias in the affected areas; and
   WHEREAS, These government-sponsored militias have carried out
violent raids in Aweil West, Twic, and Gogrial counties in Bahr el
Ghazal/Lakes Region, among others, killing hundreds of civilians and
displacing thousands; and
   WHEREAS, The National Islamic Front government has perpetrated a
prolonged campaign of human rights abuses and discrimination
throughout the country; and
   WHEREAS, The National Islamic Front government-sponsored militias
have been engaged in the enslavement of innocent civilians, including
children, women, and the elderly; and
   WHEREAS, The now common slave raids being carried out by the
government's Popular Defense Force militias are undertaken as part of
the government's self-declared jihad (holy war) against the
predominantly traditional and Christian south; and
   WHEREAS, According to the American Anti-Slavery Group of Boston,
there are tens of thousands of women and children now living as
chattel slaves in Sudan; and
   WHEREAS, These women and children were captured in slave raids
taking place over a decade by militia armed and controlled by the
National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum--they are bought, sold,
branded, and bred; and
   WHEREAS, The Department of State, in its report on Human Rights
Practices for 1997, affirmed that "reports and information from a
variety of sources after February 1994 indicate that the number of
cases of slavery, servitude, slave trade, and forced labor have
increased alarmingly"; and
   WHEREAS, The enslavement of people is considered in international
law to be a "crime against humanity"; and
   WHEREAS, Observers estimate the number of people enslaved by
government-sponsored militias to be in the tens of thousands; and
   WHEREAS, Former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Sudan,
Gaspar Biro, and his successor, Leonardo Franco, reported on a number
of occasions the routine practice of slavery and the complicity of
the Government of Sudan; and
   WHEREAS, The National Islamic Front government abuses and tortures
political opponents and innocent civilians in the north and many
northerners have been killed by this regime over the years; and
   WHEREAS, The vast majority of Muslims in Sudan do not subscribe to
the National Islamic Front's extremist and politicized practice of
Islam and moderate Muslims have been specifically targeted by the
regime; and
   WHEREAS, The National Islamic Front government is considered by
much of the world community to be a rogue state because of its
support for international terrorism and its campaign of terrorism
against its own people; and
   WHEREAS, According to the Department of State's Patterns of Global
Terrorism Report, "Sudan's support to terrorist organizations has
included paramilitary training, indoctrination, money, travel
documentation, safe passage, and refuge in Sudan"; and
   WHEREAS, The National Islamic Front government has been implicated
in the assassination attempt of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in
Ethiopia in 1995 and the World Trade Center bombing in 1993; and
   WHEREAS, The National Islamic Front government has permitted Sudan
to be used by well-known terrorist organizations as a refuge and
training hub over the years; and
   WHEREAS, The Saudi-born financier of extremist groups and the
mastermind of the United States embassy bombings in Kenya and
Tanzania, Osama bin-Laden, used Sudan as a base of operations for
several years and continues to maintain economic interests there; and

   WHEREAS, On August 20, 1998, United States Naval forces struck a
suspected chemical weapons facility in Khartoum, the capital of
Sudan, in retaliation for the United States embassy bombings in
Nairobi and Dar es Salaam; and
   WHEREAS, Relations between the United States and Sudan continue to
deteriorate because of human rights violations, the government's war
policy in southern Sudan, and the National Islamic Front's support
for international terrorism; and
   WHEREAS, In 1993, The United States government placed Sudan on the
list of seven states in the world that sponsor terrorism and imposed
comprehensive sanctions on the National Islamic Front government in
November 1997; and
   WHEREAS, The struggle by the people of Sudan and opposition forces
is a just struggle for freedom and democracy against the extremist
regime in Khartoum; and
   WHEREAS, On June 16, 1999, the United States House of
Representatives adopted House Concurrent Resolution 75, introduced by
Representative Don Payne (D-NJ), with only one dissenting vote,
condemning the Government of Sudan for "deliberately and
systematically committing genocide"; and
   WHEREAS, In Congress, both the Senate and the House of
Representatives have introduced the Sudan Peace Act, a bill to
facilitate famine relief efforts and a comprehensive solution to the
war in Sudan that would, among other specific measures, condemn
slavery and other human rights abuses by the Government of Sudan;
support the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development sponsored
peace process; increase pressure on combatants to end slavery and
human rights abuses; and protect humanitarian operations, separating
civilians from combatants, and reducing food diversion; and
   WHEREAS, This act passed in the Senate by unanimous consent on
November 19, 1999; and
   WHEREAS, Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ), Chairman of the
Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights has written
that, in addition to sponsoring terrorism, mass murder, enslavement,
and other grave crimes against its own people, "the regime has also
been identified as among the world's most egregious violators of the
fundamental right to freedom of religion"; and
   WHEREAS, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has stated that the
Sudanese regime has an "... appalling human rights record, including
torture, religious persecution, and forced imposition of sharia
(Islamic) law.  And it has prolonged a vicious and inhumane war, not
hesitating to enslave, starve and bomb civilians in violation of
international humanitarian law"; and
   WHEREAS, The Los Angeles Times stated on October 23, 1999 that
"The Clinton Administration considers the Sudanese government to be a
brutal dictator and by far the worst offender in an atrocity-filled
regional, religious and ethnic war that has claimed as many as two
million lives"; and
   WHEREAS, The Center for Religious Freedom of Freedom House, a
vigorous proponent of democratic values and a steadfast opponent of
dictatorships of the far left and far right founded in 1941 by
Eleanor Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie, and others, declares that "the
religious and ethnic genocide now occurring in Sudan has destroyed
many more lives than Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda combined";
now, therefore, be it
   Resolved by the Assembly and Senate of the State of California,
jointly, That the Legislature (1) strongly condemns the National
Islamic Front government for its genocidal war in southern Sudan,
support for terrorism, and continued human rights violations; (2)
strongly deplores the government-sponsored and tolerated slave raids
in southern Sudan and calls on the government to immediately end the
practice of slavery; (3) urges Congress to support and adopt the
Sudan Peace Act; and (4) commends the persecuted Sudanese people for
their strength and endurance in continuing resistance to the current
regime ruling Sudan, and for risking their lives for their faith; and
be it further
   Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the President and the Vice President of the United
States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Senate
Majority Leader, the Senate Minority Leader, the House Majority
Leader, the House Minority Leader, each Senator and Representative
from California in the Congress of the United States, and to the
author for appropriate distribution.
